Point of No Return
by SAMarcus
Summary: What happens when Snape meets and old "friend"? Insert standard disclaimer here, I don't own HP, JKR does, hell I barely own the idea behind this story. Eye color issue finally fixed. FFN doesn't overwrite chapters very well, took a couple tries. RnR, like it or not.


Severus Tobias Snape found himself lying down. Someone was poking him in the shoulder.

'This can't be right,' Snape thought.

"Severus, wake up," a voice said. An eerily familiar voice. "Come on, Severus, we don't have forever… well, maybe…"

Snape cracked open his eyes and found himself staring up at a face he had, at times, hoped, dreamed, prayed, he would never see again. At other times, he wanted with all his tortured heart and soul to see 'that person' one more time, if only to give him a rather large piece of his mind.

"Potter," Snape sneered.

"Yes, yes, Severus," the man sighed. "It's me, blah blah blah. Here, let me help you up."

Despite the loathing he felt, Snape let himself be pulled to his feet. He looked around to see where he was. He frowned. This looked nothing like he imagined… or hoped.

Snape found himself in what appeared to be the kitchen at Grimmauld Place. He had been lying on the floor in the corner he usually stood in during the Order meetings. As he glanced around, he noticed that it wasn't quite… right. Here there was no dust on anything, nor the scent of Weasley's cooking. The table looked old and new at the same time. He couldn't place it. Spots where there should be spices hanging from the ceiling or food under stasis charms were empty. While everything _looked_ like the kitchen, it gave a sterile, unused feel.

The man helped him over to a chair and Snape allowed himself to be seated. While the other man pulled a chair over and sat down himself, Snape took the chance to look him over. The man had the same angular chin, the same untidy hair. The glasses were the same as were the clothes. The same bright hazel eyes… no, not the same. These eyes held a sadness, a resignation that Snape had only seen in a few others. The man sitting across from Snape looked to be none other than James Potter, just as he looked the day he died. This did not bode well for his current condition.

"What is the meaning of all this, Potter?"

"Just as acid as ever, Severus. Here, we might need this and it'll probably be the last time we're allowed."

With that less than clarifying remark, Potter leaned back and pulled a pair of tumblers and a bottle of firewhiskey from the cabinet near him. Placing them on the table, he poured a generous portion into each glass and slid one over to Snape. A bit confused, but determined not to show it, Snape just held the glass and waited. Potter took a sip of his before speaking.

"Look, Severus, what's the last thing you remember?"

Snape frowned for a moment.

"What does that…" he began.

"Just humor me, ok?"

Snape was at a loss but couldn't see the harm in the question. He thought back, his very ordered mind rifling through memory as fast as he could until…

"I had just been bitten by Voldemort's snake. I recall your son being present, as ever. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time, causing all manner of trouble, much like yourself. Always sticking his nose where it wasn't wanted."

Potter just sighed and a sad smile played on his lips.

"Yes, I imagine he would be. Go on."

Snape was becoming more confused. The James Potter he remembered would have never let such a remark about his son go so easily. With a deepening frown, he continued.

"I spent a few moments gathering some memories for your spawn to use, hopefully something that he might, with whatever glimmer of intelligence or base cunning he had, understand and make something of. Likely, he went all emotional about a number of unrelated things I accidentally let him see as the poison was starting to confuse my mind. Then things got dark and cold. Then I find you poking me."

Potter smiled at Snape, but the smile was devoid of warmth or humor. It was the smile of one resigned to fate and recognizing the irony, even as the other shoe dropped on their head.

"Yes, well, gather up your drink and follow me. I should show you the place we're in. I imagine we'll be seeing a lot of it for a while."

With that, Potter got up and gestured for Snape to follow, picking up the bottle while doing so. Snape, irritated but curious, got up and walked through the offered door.

Instead of the parlor of Grimmauld Place he expected, the scene just out of the door looked more like the halls of Hogwarts, halls down in the dungeons near the Slytherin dorms. With a stony face, Snape turned back and quirked an eyebrow at Potter.

"Ah, yeah, we're not really in Grimmauld as I think you can see. This place is a bit… different. We have some time, so I'll be giving you a bit of a tour. Right then, come on!"

They wandered up and down hallways and corridors, some from Grimmauld Place, others from Hogwarts. A few were from other places they had both been. Though Potter had said this wasn't any of those places, the resemblance was quite surreal. The most noticeable difference was the complete absence of windows, even in rooms that held them in reality.

Snape was starting to feel quite uncomfortable. This James Potter was little like the man he remembered. The arrogant, selfish man who played pranks on him on an almost daily basis, many quite cruel and inventive.

They worked their way through the bottle as Potter led them through so many familiar locations. It had been hours, yet Snape felt no need to rest. He did, however, feel something. A sense of familiar wrongness that defied identification for a long time. Something tickled the back of the confused potions master's mind, something besides the hate he had felt for this man of so long.

A turn around a hall corner and a stop in front of a certain spot brought the feeling to the front of his mind… and the answer.

"Wait! Potter, damn you, wait!"

"What is it, Severus?"

"Where are we? This spot. _This_ spot is where it all went wrong! I remember that day clearly. This is where you turned Lily against me!"

A sigh. Potter took another sip of his whiskey. A glance in Snape's direction. A strange look on his face.

"I think we both know the truth of that, Severus. I may have instigated it, but you turned Lily away on your own. I accept my part of the blame for that, but you really need to accept yours as well. It will help… eventually."

"What are you blathering on about?" Snape snapped at Potter. "Where are we? What is going on?"

Potter chuckled. Snape, getting rather pissed at this point, began to surreptitiously feel for his wand. Potter noticed.

"You won't find it. I don't have mine either, Severus. They might give them to us, or maybe one of us, or whatever they come up with that they think would be best at the time."

"Who…"

"Right, well, as to where we are, I think you should have realized that by now, even if you don't really want to accept it. As to who… well, I'm not really sure about that myself. Never seen the people in charge, only other… acquaintances from before."

Snape was becoming thoroughly incensed by now. Just what the hell was going on here? Why was Potter acting this way? What did he mean by acquaintances?

Part of the wrong feeling that had been nagging him for so long clicked suddenly. With a growing feeling of fear he had not had in a long time, Snape took a good look at his memory and the places they had been walking through.

In the one hall, Potter and friends had pulled that clothes vanishing prank. In another, they had caused him to trip repeatedly until he broke his nose. Further back was where they had changed his robes into dancer's outfit and made him prance back to the common room. Where they stood was the scene of their most vile prank, the one that turned Lily against him. The one where he called her… _that_.

Potter had started to walk away, further down the corridor. Snape, not really wanting to be left alone with these memories, hurried to catch up to the man he despised. Another turn and they were in a different hallway, one that took him a moment to place. It was one he really would rather forget.

"Potter…" Snape began. He sighed. "James, wait a moment."

Potter, upon hearing Snape say his first name, turned and glanced at him.

"James… where's Lilly?"

A look of pain crossed the other man's face to be replaced by a look of terrible sorrow. In answer, Potter walked past a half opened door, nudging the door open further as he did so before answering.

"Severus… you and I, we've not led the most wholesome of lives. I mean, well, you became a Death Eater, with all that entails…"

As Potter was saying this, Snape had seen inside the room they passed, unable to help himself even while knowing what the room was. In there, he had passed his trials to become a Death Eater. In that room, he had done terrible things to that poor girl. He tore his eyes away from the room and quickly followed Potter. Even still, he saw a bit of lace… the same lace she had used to tie up her hair…

"What are you getting at, Potter?" Snape asked, his anger rising again. Potter sighed once more.

"Just so you know, Severus, everything we do in life follows us around, through our lives and… beyond. While you weren't exactly the poster child for goodness and light, I wasn't always the most chivalrous and kindest of men either. We've both done horrible things. For what it's worth in this place, I'm sorry."

"You're not making sense, Potter! Where are we? Where is Lilly?"

"She's not here, Severus. She doesn't deserve this. Only men like us. I was never really sorry about the things we did to you. Even years later, I'd have a laugh about the jokes we played on you. I never really thought about how cruel they were. About how we were… torturing you, for all those years."

A strange feeling rose in Snape's chest. He wasn't sure what was going on, he was a little scared to know the answer. He had hated this man for his whole life for the things he had endured, for stealing Lilly away, for being 'the better man' than Snape was. And _now_ he got it?

"Potter… James, where are we?" Snape whispered.

"Looks like they've decided we've chatted long enough. Don't worry, Severus, we'll be seeing plenty of each other… for a while I imagine."

Before Snape could answer that disturbingly confusing remark, his vision blurred and his head pained him for a moment. When it all cleared he found himself staring up at a boy dangling from nothing in the air. A teenage boy that looked very familiar. That nose, the pale skin, the hair… it was a sight he had seen many times… in his mirror.

The body he was in was holding a wand and laughing. To one side was that girl, Eloise. She stared on with a blank look on her face. Only her eyes betrayed any emotion. That emotion was hunger. Snape couldn't control the scene, he could only watch as the horror of the day he lost Lilly played out, the strange feelings of triumph and joy being forced onto him coming from the body he was in. He looked up at the dangling boy and caught the eyes. The eyes were different.

They were hazel and filled with sadness.


End file.
